1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of electrical systems and devices and more specifically to an apparatus and method for monitoring a variety of resource consumption meters.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
The ability to measure the operation of a utility meter without physically altering the meter itself is of significant importance to the millions of consumers who would like to continuously monitor their use of the limited natural resources of our planet, without the expense of replacing their existing metering systems with advanced electronic metering systems that may be design to only provide usage data to the utility company themselves, not the consumer themselves.
One of the most common requirements for monitoring is to count the revolutions of the spinning disk in an analog style electricity meter. Existing systems require installation inside the electricity meter with close proximity to the disk.
There exists a need for a non-invasive detection system that can function on a wide variety of meter types and does not require a high degree of accuracy in locating the sensor, and does not require user knowledge of the type of meter they are installing the system on.